Interview On Chandler Mayberry

1) What is your story about?

My story is about a young girl who writes a letter to her mother on the same day as her death. The girl faces many challenges throughout this book and the only person who can help her is herself.

2) How did you come up with the idea of your story?

I came up with this idea on my own, for some reason it just came to me.

3) What works have inspired you to write this story?

The book Ellen Foster as well as Forest Gump inspired me.

4) What genre is your story?

            My story is fiction.

5) When does your story take place?

            My story takes place around the 1990's.

6) Where does your story take place?

            My story takes place in a small town in Kentucky called Mayberry.

7) What is the moral of your story?

            The moral to my story is to never give up.

8) Who is your audience?

            Everyone, or anyone who knows how hard it is to overcome something difficult.

9) What are the major themes of your story?

            I'm not quiet sure yet.

10) Is your book going to be a chapter book, a picture book, or somewhere in between? 

            It’s going to be written in letter formatting.

11) What is the climax of your story?

            The climax is when the abuse from her father begins.

12) Who is your favorite character? Why?

            Brooke is my favorite character because she is so strong.

13) Who is the main character of your story?   

            Brooke is the main character.

14) Is there a bad guy in your story? 

            Brooke's father is the bad guy because he becomes abusive towards her.

15) What conflicts do your character face?

            My character faces the conflict to survive and also to protect her brothers.

16) Are you going to have a conflict between any characters?

            The only conflict will be between Brooke and her father.

17) Are there going to be any conflicts within your plot?

            Yes and no I’m still working on that.

18) What obstacles do your characters face?

            Brooke faces the obstacle of the abuse and also trying to gain custody of her brothers.

19) What has been your greatest difficulty when writing your story?

Coming up with new ideas I keep getting a little of topic.

20) Have you suffered any writer’s blocks?

Yes, every time I start writing.

If you would like to read Dear Mommy by Chandler Mayberry click here

Ready, Set, Don't Go.

Becoming a senior had been a dream I thought would take forever to accomplish, everyone told me high school would fly by but I would just shake my head thinking they couldn’t be serious. It turns out everyone was right; moving to such a rushed and exciting town, as Plymouth, has made my teenage years come to an end much too fast.  

Being born in Arizona has always inspired me to go back because that is my true home. Since I was six years old I have dreamed of going to college at the University of Arizona, and that dream is still very alive. Living in Arizona is something I have always been ready for. With college just around the corner, I now have to make the decision if I would like to follow my dream or stay close to my family. This is not an easy subject to discuss with my family because we have never spent more than a week apart. My dad always sings, “Get Ready, Get Set, Don’t Go” to me because he doesn’t want me to go. I have come to realize this song is extremely relative to my life and thoughts towards going far away to college.

I know my dreams are way too big for Plymouth, and even though my parents want me to obtain my goals, they don’t want to let me go. Miley Cyrus says; “I'm at the startin' line of the rest of my life as ready as I've ever been. Got the hunger and the stars in my eyes the prize is mine to win.” This line always speaks to me because I know I can never give up on my dreams just to make someone happy. If I have enough passion and hunger to reach my dreams, then I will achieve what makes me the happiest.

With my high school career coming to a close, I am finding it very stressful to make the most beneficial decisions for my future. As my dad says “Get Ready, Get Set, Don’t Go”, I do not see it as a bad thing he is telling me. I know when he tells me this; he is giving me his blessing to strive for what I want in life, to obtain my goals, and to most importantly make decisions for myself. As much as he does not want to lose me to a state, thousands of miles away, he wants me to go so I never give up on my dreams; and as much as he tells me not to go, I am going to go to achieve my aspirations. 

A Twist to Personification

 We see them in the halls of school everyday. We call them ferocious, demanding, in-style, and extremely hot. No, they are not what you think, the popular girls of the school. These are not even humans, but they have a mind of their own and cause heads to turn. This is my blog post about the inanimate object, high heels.

Marilyn Monroe once said; “I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.” To me, heels are unlike any other shoe on the shelf due to the idea that they show power. Heels are equivalent to the president in the shoe world. We have flip flops to represent the people in poverty, sneakers to symbolize the everyday person, and flats to signify the upper class; however, the heel seems to always come out on top in the fashion world. Why you ask? Because heels give people dignity. Meg Ryan stated; “When I wear high heels I have a great vocabulary and I speak in paragraphs. I’m more eloquent. I plan to wear them more often.” The elegance heels bring out; the more educated, responsible, and classy us girls become. Along with the sophisticated heels that women can wear to refined events, we also have the edgy heels.

Daring heels have become wide spread throughout the United States. When we approach a shoe store there are many displays showing five inch heals with an assortment of patterns; such as the fierce cheetah prints, the tasteful glittery patterns, and the eye catching snake skin prints. With this new fashion trend, no one can stay away from these new stilettos because they give the ‘shoe’ a whole new name. Wearing these shoes makes a bold statement; they scream confidence. A typical boring girl would not have the confidence to put on a pair of stilettos with cheetah print on it and wear them in public, no matter how much she loved the shoes. Heels are definitely a confidence booster; they make you taller, they make your legs look longer, they are cute, and they are inexpensive. High heels show men power, dignity, nobility, and put them in awe.  

Last Tuesday I decided to live a day in my most daring heels and all of this was proven to be true to me. People would stare with shocking looks as to what I was wearing and I received numerous questions. Although I got an immense amount of weird looks, the overall outcome of my shoes was a great choice because it stood me apart from everyone else for a day. I did something out of the ordinary and for that I gained a lot of self confidence. High heels are a simple way to make a bold statement, I think all girls should wear them for at least one day in their lifetime. 

Mentor Text Number 2

For my mentor text this week I read Perfect Chemistry, recommended to me by a classmate. I honestly could not have found a better relating story to my story. I really enjoyed reading this book, it was just what I love to read, a sappy love story. However, while I reading Perfect Chemistry I was a little weirded out because my book was extremely similar in multiple ways. First off the main characters name in both my book and Perfect Chemistry is Brittney. Next they both had to do with a very pretty, rich, and popular girl and a boy that is not the most popular kid around. Both characters cross paths when they are forced to be chemistry partners in a chemistry lab, just like in my story. The biggest difference between my story and Perfect Chemistry is that my boy character, Brayden, is an outcast with no friends and the main boy character in my mentor readings main boy character, Alex, was in a Latin gang.

My mentor text greatly influenced my reading because both stories were too similar to my writings. Instead of creating a sappy romance where my two main characters fall in love, like Alex and Brittney in Perfect Chemistry, I am either going to have Brayden end up being some imaginary angel she sort of dreamed up that changed her life for the better because she is so arrogant; or I am going to make Brayden move away. As for my girl character I am going to change her name to Melissa, just so my story is not too similar to Perfect Chemistry.  This story has given me many other ideas such as having Melissa seem to have a perfect life to her classmates, but truly be dealing with problems at home that no one would ever expect. I am still brainstorming ideas; however I was thinking that she could really be poor because everyone thinks she is rich, but her grandmother left her parents the home when she died and Melissa can steal clothes to seem rich. My moral of the story has not changed but along with my idea of having the moral be about being nice to people because you never know what they are going through; I have added the idea that there is more than what meets the eye. I am looking forward to reading my next mentor text because I found this one to be extremely inspiring while writing my novel, Colliding Paths. 

Comments Week 6

http://chandlermayberry.blogspot.com/2011/10/man-in-black-top-hat_13.html

http://sally-girouard.blogspot.com/2011/10/ready-set-go.html?showComment=1318557229262#c1955595634983559561

http://morality-hmatthews.blogspot.com/2011/10/chevy.html?showComment=1318558331096#c823284567245497206
http://kaileymazzillimorality.blogspot.com/2011/10/importance-of-family-not-even-question.html?showComment=1318558732414#c2653549794148924455
http://labates.blogspot.com/2011/10/dont-be-fooled.html?showComment=1318559374077#c447213505776108685

http://aperiodenglishmmpshs.blogspot.com/2011/10/art-of-procrastination.html?showComment=1318806406528#c7756467451522584680

The Controversy: Is Cheerleading a Sport?

“Cheerleading is not a sport!” This is a simple sentence that may mean nothing to some, however to a cheerleader it is the most dreadful comment in the world.

Being a cheerleader for twelve years out of my seventeen years of life has made me extremely familiar with this sport. Yes, I say sport because you would not understand what it really takes to be a cheerleader, if you are not one. I watch other “sports” and do not see how other people can say; “Cheerleading is not a sport,” when these other things I watch I can’t even understand what they are supposed to do.

For starters, I’m sure we have all seen a baseball game. We have our outfield and infield standing around until a ball comes that they catch and throw away to another player. Then there are the batters that just sit around until they get to swing a metal pole around and hope to possibly hit a ball. If they’re lucky enough to hit it they only have to run 90 feet, then they get to stop and take a breather. And they call baseball a sport?

Then we have football, where a big group of boys run and jump on top of each other. They also throw a weird shaped ball that looks like Hey Arnolds head. Bringing us to hockey, all they are, are boy figure skaters with a stick and a puck that they hit into a big net and fight each other.

What about soccer? We see people run up and down a field kicking a ball and hopefully aiming correctly into a huge net. Sounds pretty tough. And then there’s basketball. In this so called “sport”, boys and girls run up and down a big court bouncing a giant bouncy ball off the ground, and when the times right, they throw the big bouncy ball into a net! And you still say cheerleading is not the sport here when we have a sport called golf? They drive to different holes and hit a ball with a metal pole then they drive more.

The reason I am using these sports is because I have never played on a team for these sports, I would never understand what it takes to seriously play each one of those sports. Cheerleading is discriminated as a “hobby” due to the fact that our audience sees the ending factor of what we do. They see our stunts hit precisely, our motions perfect, and our dance exquisite; to our audience, we make it look easy.  They would never see the blood, sweat, or tears that come from us. Eat. Sleep. Cheer. Repeat. That is a cheerleaders’ life. Cheerleading is a sport; however, if you are not one, you would never understand. 

Comments Week 4 and 5

http://sydneycochran7.blogspot.com/2011/10/personal-narrative-shifting.html?showComment=1318290870012#c4796542647710021138

http://chandlermayberry.blogspot.com/2011/10/life-is-prize-live-every-moment-like.html?showComment=1318290931288#c2388076640025686524

http://sally-girouard.blogspot.com/2011/10/width148-height44-namemovie-value.html?showComment=1318290968667#c3904867192189875413

http://adamferguson16.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-believe-life-is-improvised-solo.html?showComment=1318291945878#c528332252956168267

http://scriordan94.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/i-am-me/#comment-8

http://kaileymazzillimorality.blogspot.com/2011/10/personal-narrative.html?showComment=1318295025713#c3748841562490613110

http://licensetobemorallyrational.blogspot.com/2011/10/blissful-blindness.html?showComment=1318296367333#c7151632616340735739

http://alexjosephson.blogspot.com/2011/10/impacting-my-community-my-college-essay.html?showComment=1318296665367#c6153651554284411716